Hearthstone pro Zalae accused of domestic abuse

Hearthstone Grandmasters player Paul "Zalae" Nemeth has been accused of physical and psychological violence from his ex-partner.

The accusations against the 34-year-old came from his ex-girlfriend and Twitch streamer lidlRini, who has shared her story via a TwitLonger.

According to lidlRini, the last time she saw Zalae he was "repeatedly taunting" her with his body posture "like he was going to hit me" while grabbing her wrists tightly so that he can hold her "in the small spaces".

lidlRini says that she was telling him to back away because she was scared, but he kept doing that while yelling at her.

TL;DW Zalae and his abuse in our relationship

Read: https://t.co/zyEfvSDYpc

— Rini (@lidlRini) January 18, 2021

lidlRini claims that "there were about 10 - 13 occasions" of her trying to explain to Zalae that she's scared and feeling threatened, but he didn't back off.

"This resulted in me giving 2 open-handed arm slaps I laid on the middle of his arm," she states. "The biggest part- he's way bigger than me & I didn't use real force behind it, it was a warning because words were not helping and he was very scary."

Zalae plays in Hearthstone Grandmasters, Blizzard's invite-only competitive series (Picture: Blizzard)

According to lidlRini, this provoked Zalae to become even more aggressive. Allegedly, he picked her up and started "dragging" her to their bedroom, where he threw her on the bed.

What happened after is by far the worst part of the story, as lidlRini claims that her life was endangered.

"[Zalae] physically got on top of me and put a pillow over my face while holding me down, effectively suffocating me until I managed to get a breath to yell 'I can't breathe!'"

lidlRini says that he was blinded by rage and her words "snapped him out of it" so he let go of the pillow and got up.

The next morning, according to lidlRini, Zalae put the blame on her.

"[Zalae] woke me up early the next morning and he told me I had less than 24 hours to get out of his house and that -I- was abusive and he didn't feel safe."

The second part of lidlRini's statement is focused on Zalae's psychological abuse during their relationship.

lidlRini explains that they have lived together for about 10 weeks before the incident and that he was "incredibly emotionally abusive" and that he is a control freak who didn't respect her at all.

"[Zalae] was telling me things like 'you're not good enough' and 'you're on a maternal clock so you need to be better/what I want before you run out of time to have kids.' It was all about control."

• Read more: Amaz, popular Hearthstone streamer, accused of forcing a girl into a hot tub with players during a tournament

As a result of everything that had occurred, she has decided to step away from the Hearthstone community and from streaming in general, to focus more on her community management career.

lidlRini says that she is not doing this in order to hurt his career, but because Zalae "needs serious help" and to go to anger management. She explains that she can't stay quiet anymore and she wants his current girlfriend to know about it.

lidlRini feels that she has lost many friends in the streaming community (Picture: lidlRini)

Zalae is playing Hearthstone for team Omnislash and he is participating in Blizzard's Hearthstone Grandmasters competitive program.

At the time of writing, Zalae hasn't yet responded to the accusations and Blizzard haven't take any measures against him.

If you want to find out more details about lidlRini's story of Zalae's abusive behaviour, we recommend you watch her video below.